2 Couples Found Dead In Homes

Neighbors Of The Apparent Murder-suicide Victims In Orange County And Kissimmee Reported Having Heard Arguing.

April 28, 1993|By Sharon McBreen and Annie Tin of The Sentinel Staff

Two Central Florida couples were found shot to death Tuesday, both apparent victims of murder-suicides.

Deputy sheriffs checking on an east Orange County couple found them dead in their home off Aloma Avenue about 3 p.m.

Thirty minutes later, a 9-year-old Kissimmee boy returning from school found his parents dead. His 4-year-old sister apparently was home when her parents died.

Neighbors of both couples told police they had heard arguing.

Janna, 36, and Elwood Gorman Lau, 41, were found in a bedroom of their neat, concrete-block house at 1224 Denton Road in the Winter Park Estates subdivision. A handgun was nearby.

Deputies said they died sometime over the weekend.

Tuesday, a co-worker and Janna Lau's sister called deputies when they could not reach the Laus, sheriff's spokesman Deputy Carlos Padilla said.

Sheridan Dyethorn told deputies that her sister and brother-in-law had been having domestic problems, and Lau had threatened his wife with a gun, Padilla said.

''We're just as shocked as everybody else,'' said Dolly Decker, a neighbor who took care of the Lau's four cats when they went on vacation. ''I never heard them fight.''

In Osceola County, deputy sheriffs found Gary, 35, and Jayne Petty, 29, at their home in the King's Crest subdivision in Kissimmee. The couple's 4-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old brother were later taken to a friend's house, said sheriff's Capt. Larry Taggett.

Neighbors said the Pettys had lived there two years.

''They were very nice,'' said Pat Davis, a neighbor who recently entertained them. ''Everybody in the neighborhood knew them.''

But two other neighbors said the couple argued a lot. Petty, a cousin of retired race car driver Richard Petty, was an unemployed construction worker, and Jayne Petty worked in a Poinciana manufacturing company, they said.